The Chicken Choker Chronicles: Englishtown

Rain! Sticky qualifying! TBD!

By Len Cottrell

[Len Cottrell has been sending updates on his and Tim Slagle's Chicken Chokers Federal Mogul Dragster team this year as they chase NHRA Division 1 fame and glory. Here's the update from Englishtown, NJ. bp]

Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ, has always been a magnet for supercharged alcohol cars and this year was no exception! Eighteen dragsters and 16 funny cars went through tech inspection for eight qualifying spots in each category.

After arriving Friday afternoon, we enjoyed a good cookout at the track and arose Saturday morning to watch it rain most of the day. Finally, at just about happy hour, 5:00 p.m., NHRA decided that the weather would allow us to get in one hot, humid, sticky qualifying session. 

We made the session. Four of the 18 cars had problems and could not even make it to the finish. After the other 14 did make it down the track, we were fortunate enough to get a clean pass in at 5.72 for the # 2 spot behind Billy Gibson's 5.69 #1 spot.

The weather was even worse on Sunday. Finally at about 2:00 p.m., NHRA made the decision to reschedule the race for Friday & Saturday, Sept 7 & 8. So the rest of the race is TBD!

The next adventure is at Cecil County, MD, in two weeks.

Len Cottrell
len.cottrell@lmco.com